Supervision in the Flow of the Day

When people ask what supervision looks like at Tokoiti, I sometimes say this: it’s not something we do extra. It’s something we’ve made space for.

Yes, we have formal supervision — a trusted external practitioner who visits once a month, offering reflective space for those who want it. But the heartbeat of our model lives in the daily rhythm. It’s the protected time after school when staff know they can show up and be held, quietly or fully. It’s the kōrero that happens not because it’s scheduled, but because the space is there for it to happen.

Sometimes we just sit together in that window. No agenda. No work talk. Just a cup of tea and the soft relief of presence. Other times, someone might bring something big — a tough moment from the day, a question about how they responded to a child, a worry they haven’t been able to shake. And because the space is already there, we don’t have to scramble to find time. We just go there.

The thing is, in schools, we’re trained to connect — with children. We spend our days tuning in, reading the room, adjusting our tone. But that kind of emotional labour is exhausting. And unless we also practise presence with each other — peer to peer, adult to adult — the well runs dry.

One of the things I’ve done is integrate that presence into moments in my class like HotSeat — a simple practice where we choose one person and invite gentle, open questions. At first, it’s surface stuff. What’s your favourite food? What music do you like? But over time, the questions have gathered depth. What inspires you? What’s something hard you’ve overcome? And the room changes. People soften. There’s laughter. Sometimes, silence. Always, connection.

This is supervision, too. Practising how to see each other. Learning to sit with the pause, not rush to answer. Offering feedback through stories and presence, not forms, assessments and checklists.

It doesn’t need a new building or a funding stream. It just needs intention, and the courage to slow down.

Next, I’ll write about how we’ve used AI not as a gimmick, but as a quiet helper — giving us the time to do this work properly. But for now, maybe just this:

Where in your day is there already a space that could hold more than you think?